Teenage Head Announce 40th Anniversary Show in Toronto

BY Gregory AdamsPublished Mar 6, 2015

Get ready to shake, because Hamilton punk legends Teenage Head have announced plans to hold a 40th anniversary party in Toronto this spring.

The band will be celebrating the occasion at Toronto's Phoenix Concert Theatre on April 11. While original singer Frankie Venom passed away in 2008 after battling throat cancer, the group will perform with Pete MacAulay, who took over the frontman mantle in 2009.

In addition to the concert performance, the band will be on hand to sign copies of author Geoff Pevere's 2014 band biography, Gods of the Hammer: The Teenage Head Story.

Teenage Head was formed in 1975 by Venom, guitarist Gord Lewis, bassist Steve Mahon and drummer Nick Stipanitz. The outfit are well-regarded as "Canada's original punk band," and had been described as "this country's answer to the Ramones." The group's early records are considered landmark releases, with 1980's Frantic City yielding signature tune "Lets Shake."

Junkhouse/Lee Harvey Osmond's Tom Wilson had been working on erecting statue tributing Venom in his native Hamilton, but public outcry over the singer's troubled past stifled the project in 2014.

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